On New Year’s Day, the first recreational marijuana shops opened for business in Colorado. Through a landmark ballot initiative, the state became the first and only place in the world where recreational cannabis can be grown, sold and taxed legally. Eager customers lined up along snowy, freshly cleared sidewalks; gleefully awaiting their turn to purchase neatly packaged sacks of bud.
King Tut Kush, Gypsy Girl. You name it, you can get it. That is so long as you are over 21, can front enough cash and agree to also buy the required childproof bag. Retailers, who had both the investment capital and the stamina to undergo rigorous inspections, background checks and approval process, anticipated as many as 1,000 first-day customers.
where there is a demand there will always be a black market, legal places are not open 24/7 there are regs that some might not be able to adhere to and still get the product, not to mention the all too much for profit prices actually discriminate against poor or low wage users, the very ones who frequent the black markets. so will there really be a change or just one that a few can afford?
A chart-topping friend in the music industry, who is nothing short of an expert “weedologist”, says it is indeed “top notch @!$%#.” But he recalls copping an ounce for just $300 a few months ago in Colorado.The government now owns the game and with that comes a myriad of drawbacks. Exorbitant pricing and heavy taxation effectively locked many people out of the market. And even if that is short-term, it ensures the black market will persist. The ever savvy and nimble “trap gods”, free of the regulatory environment, the costs associated with lighting up a store, paying employees and issuing W-2s, will adjust their prices to meet the demand for cheaper weed.That’s just the free market at work. And nobody knows the game better than the streets.But make no mistake, that street market will remain criminalized. “The new system is f**ked up,” said the weedologist. He agrees that, in fact, for this experiment to be successful not only will the state have to get more shops approved to improve the supply chain flow, law enforcement must clamp down on the illegal trade.The government game cannot survive if the street peddler and his bargain basement prices are allowed to flourish. And that almost certainly means more arrests– more arrests of a largely black, brown and disproportionately poor population of street vendors. The result may further tip the scales in favor of a privileged class already largely safe from criminalization.
so this is a law that by default discriminates a good portion of the public while forcing criminal action by those who sell on the street and those that patronize them, so will this lessen jail occupation or increase it, dangling the proverbial carrot in front of the face that can't have it only heightens the desire to possess it. is there a hidden scheme here?
A chart-topping friend in the music industry, who is nothing short of an expert "weedologist", says it is indeed "top notch @!$%#." But he recalls copping an ounce for just $300 a few months ago in Colorado.The government now owns the game and with that comes a myriad of drawbacks. Exorbitant pricing and heavy taxation effectively locked many people out of the market. And even if that is short-term, it ensures the black market will persist. The ever savvy and nimble "trap gods", free of the regulatory environment, the costs associated with lighting up a store, paying employees and issuing W-2s, will adjust their prices to meet the demand for cheaper weed.That's just the free market at work. And nobody knows the game better than the streets.But make no mistake, that street market will remain criminalized. "The new system is f**ked up," said the weedologist. He agrees that, in fact, for this experiment to be successful not only will the state have to get more shops approved to improve the supply chain flow, law enforcement must clamp down on the illegal trade.The government game cannot survive if the street peddler and his bargain basement prices are allowed to flourish. And that almost certainly means more arrests– more arrests of a largely black, brown and disproportionately poor population of street vendors. The result may further tip the scales in favor of a privileged class already largely safe from criminalization.
so this is a law that by default discriminates a good portion of the public while forcing criminal action by those who sell on the street and those that patronize them, so will this lessen jail occupation or increase it, dangling the proverbial carrot in front of the face that can't have it only heightens the desire to possess it. is there a hidden scheme here?
